Somewhat old news now, but An Unexpected Journey will be available on Blu-ray and DVD on March 19th, and for digital download on March 12th! Also, Peter Jackson will be hosting a live first look at The Desolation of Smaug on March 24th, but it will be restricted only to those who buy the movie, which will come with an access code.

I'll be waiting for the inevitable Extended Edition (which will likely come out in November or so), but I thought folks might like to know.

To the Surprise of no one who has watched any of the behind the scenes material of the making of the Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit, Hobbit: There and Back Again has been pushed back from Summer 2014 to December 17th 2014.

Considering that each of the above mentioned films have taken nearly the full year of post production to complete (and the last two done literally just two to three days before the World Premiere), there was no legitimate way the third film would be able to complete its post production in 6 months period of time.

Also as of Friday, the World Wide Total of The Hobbit stands at 993 million. Between Sunday and tuesday the film should officially pass a billion dollars.

Considering that each of the above mentioned films have taken nearly the full year of post production to complete (and the last two done literally just two to three days before the World Premiere), there was no legitimate way the third film would be able to complete its post production in 6 months period of time.

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So why did they announce it was coming out in Summer 2014 then? Just for a laugh?

I'm surprised this got rated as highly as it did here, or maybe I shouldn't, because this is where genre fans congregate.

As a Tolkien fan, I should have loved this movie, but I didn't. It simply didn't have the gravitas of LOTR. Even when Bilbo put on the ring I was waiting for that tingle up my spine that I felt right in the prologue of Fellowship, and I never did.

The magic I felt when LOTR was unspooling one movie at a time feels gone and in its place this thing feels kind of like an obligatory piece of commerce, not a tale that had to be told.

This is because the overriding theme is weak. The quest of a dispossed people trying to win back their homeland just doesn't move me that much, and Bilbo going on an adventure because he's basically bored, doesn't feel very Joseph Campbell.

Certainly the stakes grow by the time Smaug torches Laketown and the battle of the five armies happens, but in this movie, it just felt like nothing happens and they invented a subplot with an old grudge with an orc just to give Thorin a bad guy to conquer before the lights came up again.

The humor was not funny. Radagast with layers of caked-on bird-shit on his face because he keeps birds in his hat was a serious miscue. Someone with some serious balls should have told Peter Jackson NO to stuff like that. Nobody wants to drop major cash to see a bird-shit in 48FPS and 3D.

and Bilbo going on an adventure because he's basically bored, doesn't feel very Joseph Campbell.

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If that were the storyline that the movie went with, I would agree. However, it really isn't. While, just like the book, Bilbo seems to initially choose to go on a whim (I wouldn't quite say boredom, it looks more like a guilt trip), the movie expands his motivation show that he really identifies with the Dwarves quest (although, logically, if this is their quest, they don't need a burglar). Your criticism is indeed a valid one for the book, though, which never really does give him much motivation. As a children's book, I certainly never thought about it as a kid, though. The movie does give him a stronger motivation than that and hammers you with it so I'm surprised you missed it. They literally ask Bilbo at one point and he says specifically why he is helping them on their quest.

I can't double dip on these. I waited for the EEs for LOTR, so I will have to hold my cash. I do hope the EEs for the Hobbit films are available in 3D too... Hell, I might even wait until 2020 so I can get the box set.